Branded Advertising Based Dynamic Experience Generator

Abstract

Methods and apparatus are provided to provide served ads to one or more clients based on dynamic-community information, ad-related information, service features, service activity, country of origin, and device-related information. Dynamic communities are formed based on a trigger, which may be a command, a request for information, a change in context, or an event notification. After receiving the trigger, a served ad may be piggybacked onto a response to the trigger. The served ad may include graphical, audio, textual, and/or other information. Additionally, served ads may be sent in response to ad requests. A served ad may be selected based on ad-screening rules and/or conflict resolution between advertisers competing to provide the selected ad.

1 . A method to be performed by a computing device, the method comprising:
 receiving a trigger, wherein the trigger comprises ad-related data;   sending an ad request to an ad server based on the trigger;   receiving a served ad in response to the ad request; and   sending the served ad.   
   
   
       2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the trigger is a request for information. 
   
   
       3 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the trigger is an event notification. 
   
   
       4 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the trigger comprises information about service features, country of origin of the trigger, device-related information, or a combination thereof. 
   
   
       5 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the ad-related data comprises user-selectable information related to an advertiser. 
   
   
       6 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the ad-related data comprises social-networking information. 
   
   
       7 . The method of  claim 6 , wherein the social-networking information comprises social-networking information based on one or more messages. 
   
   
       8 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein sending an ad request comprises sending an ad request contextually based on a dynamic-community change. 
   
   
       9 . The method of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 responsive to sending the served ad, storing information about the sent served ad in an ad-request database.   
   
   
       10 . An apparatus, comprising:
 a processing unit;   a network-communication interface;   data storage; and   machine-language instructions, stored in the data storage, executable by the processing unit to perform functions, the functions comprising:
 receiving an ad request associated with a trigger via the network-communication interface, wherein the ad request comprises ad-related data, 
 determining a served ad based on the ad-related data, and 
 sending the served ad via the network-communication interface. 
   
   
   
       11 . The apparatus of  claim 10 , wherein the served ad comprises graphical data, audio data, textual data, and other data. 
   
   
       12 . The apparatus of  claim 10 , wherein the ad-related data further comprises location information and wherein determining the served ad further comprises determining the served ad based on the location information. 
   
   
       13 . The apparatus of  claim 10 , wherein the data storage is further configurable to store one or more ad-screening rules, and wherein determining the served ad comprises determining the served ad based on the one or more ad-screening rules. 
   
   
       14 . The apparatus of  claim 13 , wherein determining the served ad based on the one or more ad-screening rules comprises:
 selecting a served advertiser from a plurality of advertisers based on the one or more ad-screening rules; and   determining the served ad based on the served advertiser.   
   
   
       15 . The apparatus of  claim 13 , wherein the one or more ad-screening rules comprises one or more ad-screening rules associated with one or more advertising categories. 
   
   
       16 . The apparatus of  claim 15 , wherein at least two advertisers in a plurality of advertisers are associated with a given advertising category, and wherein determining the served ad based on the one or more ad-screening rules comprises:
 performing conflict resolution to select one selected advertiser of the at least two advertisers; and   selecting an ad from the one selected advertiser as the served ad.   
   
   
       17 . A method to be performed by a computing device, the method comprising:
 intercepting a trigger, the trigger comprising dynamic-community information;   sending the trigger to a server;   receiving a response to the trigger from the server;   determining an ad request and an ad server based on the trigger;   sending the ad request to the ad server;   in response to the ad request, receiving a served ad; and   sending the response to the trigger, wherein the response to the trigger comprises the served ad.   
   
   
       18 . The method of  claim 17 , wherein the ad server is an internal ad server. 
   
   
       19 . The method of  claim 17 , wherein determining the ad request and ad server comprises determining the ad server based on configuration data, the configuration data comprising one or more ad-server addresses. 
   
   
       20 . The method of  claim 17 , further comprising:
 responsive to sending the served ad, providing data about the served ad to the ad server.